Actress Hayden Panettiere has been found dead at age 36 inside an apartment block in Greenville, South Carolina, following a suspected cardiac arrest.
Emergency services received a 911 call at 1:51 pm on Sunday from an acquaintance describing the star as unresponsive, according to dispatch audio. Authorities treated the call as a cardiac arrest, with voices discussing a possible overdose, and TMZ reported that Narcan nasal spray used to reverse opioid overdoses was found on a mattress inside the loft apartment. Panettiere was pronounced dead less than 40 minutes after the call was placed.
The former Heroes and Nashville star had flown to South Carolina on Saturday from Los Angeles, where she shared a home with her on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson. Hickerson, a real estate agent with whom Panettiere shared a tumultuous relationship detailed in her memoir, lives in South Carolina. Her father, former firefighter Alan "Skip" Panettiere, issued a statement on Sunday evening confirming the tragic news. Her mother, Lesley Vogel, has not yet commented.
The death comes three months after Panettiere proudly promoted her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, in mid-May. The book lifted the lid on her rise from child actor to Hollywood star while providing candid details about her alcoholism, postnatal depression, familial trauma, and decision to yield custody of her 11-year-old daughter Kaya to her ex-fiancé, Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko. While her publisher was delighted and her father expressed pride, her mother was scathing.
Addressing her decision to break contact with her daughter, Vogel said in a statement at the time: "After 20 years of trauma, I took the advice of professionals and chose the no-contact route." Vogel added: "As many parents of entertainment children know, we are all too familiar with the painful observation of watching the self-destructive paths they sometimes choose. Sadly, this is out of our control. You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved." Three months later, 70-year-old Vogel must be ruing those words.
Tragic End to Fraught Family Dynamics
The sudden loss is another devastating blow for Panettiere's parents, who lost their 28-year-old son Jansen to a heart condition in 2023. Skip Panettiere and Lesley Vogel separated in 2008 after Skip was charged with misdemeanor spousal battery, and Vogel filed for divorce in 2012. Their divorce was finalized in 2016, and Skip has since remarried.
Behind her bubbly charisma and glossy Tinseltown success, Panettiere harbored years of deeply personal turmoil. A source close to the actress told the Daily Mail in May that the estrangement from her mother was "worse than anyone knows" and had been deteriorating for about two years. However, Vogel told the Daily Mail earlier this year that the estrangement was a recent occurrence starting around mid-September 2025.
Vogel defended her decision, stating: "We each are entitled to choose our path in life. After 20 years of trauma, chaos, addictions and accusations, I felt I had no other option but to choose no contact." Vogel also claimed that allegations that she forced her daughter to work were designed "to sell books," though she added: "There will forever be a lingering hope that she will find her own path to inner peace." During her book tour, Panettiere told Us Weekly: "Unfortunately, we don't have a relationship right now. But that doesn't mean that I don't leave the door open for the opportunity to present itself one day."
Childhood Superstardom and Studio Pressure
Panettiere grew up in the public eye, starting work at eight months old before booking her first commercial for a Playskool toy at 11 months. By age five, she had landed recurring roles on daytime soap operas One Life to Live and Guiding Light. Vogel, a former daytime television actress with appearances on ABC's Loving and NBC's Another World during the 1980s, stopped acting to focus entirely on managing her daughter's career.
Panettiere alleged that her mother's management contributed to her later struggles with alcohol and opioid addiction, claiming Vogel groomed her to be a "little soldier" when performing. In her memoir, Panettiere recalled freezing during a Kodak commercial audition at age four. When she told her mother, Vogel responded: "You didn't do it? I drove all the way here and you just walked out? We'll talk about it in the car. Get in your stroller." Panettiere recalled her heart pounding as her mother pushed the stroller quickly down the sidewalk, knowing she had failed her mother's high expectations.
In her book, Panettiere described how her mother communicated anger through physical cues. Irritation showed as a slightly opened mouth, anger brought a clenched jaw, and extreme rage caused her lower jaw to move forward into a "soul-shattering underbite" that made four-year-old Panettiere want to hide under her bed.
Superglue Tooth and Financial Demands
On another occasion, Vogel refused to let a lost tooth stop an audition. She told her daughter to hand over the lost tooth and cross her fingers, before squeezing superglue onto the tooth and affixing it to a retainer with an acrylic palate. Panettiere waited a few seconds for the glue to dry, slipped the retainer tentatively into her mouth, licked her top teeth, and smiled for the audition.
In an interview on the podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Panettiere claimed her mother told her from a young age that her income was essential to support the family. Her earnings were used to pay household expenses, car payments, and phone bills. By age 16, her income from films like Remember the Titans, Raising Helen, and the Bring It On sequel, alongside a Neutrogena ad contract first booked in 2005, purchased an apartment for the family.
Panettiere stated on the podcast: "I was working hard, making money, and this money was going towards things that I wasn't privy to." In a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal, she admitted: "I did not have the slightest clue as to how much I was paid. I was never curious about how much until I was older." She described an uncomfortable role reversal where she felt like a provider and viewed her mother as a boss rather than a parent, saying: "I became the confidante and the assistant and the therapist and the shoulder to cry on and everything but her child."
Panettiere also claimed her mother guilt-tripped her over manager travel schedules, telling her daughter: "You're the reason why I'm missing my son growing up." Panettiere called the statement a punch in the gut. At age 18, she moved out of the family home for survival and necessity. A year later, while acting on Heroes, she ended their business relationship, telling Vogel she just wanted her to be her mother. Vogel reportedly replied "You owe me" and walked out.
